If you’re looking to simplify your home and life, these are things you can downsize now. Although I don’t usually make blanket statements about what people should and should not keep, these items often appear in excess in many homes we organize. Read on to see what you can easily let go of.

Kitchen

Disposable Plates and Cutlery: Keep one set per person in the household in case of emergency. Keep one set at the office in case of emergency. Donate unopened packages to shelters or food banks. Broken or warped sets can go into recycling or trash.

Food Storage Containers: Toss any mismatched sets, warped, broken, or stained containers and lids. Most of these containers can go in household recycling. Be realistic about the number of container sets you keep. If your fridge and freezer are full, chances are, you can let go of most of the empty food containers in your cupboard.

Food: Donate any food that you will not consume before the best before date or expiry date. Toss expired foods into the compost waste stream. If the food is very old and possibly contaminated (for example, bulged cans), put it in the garbage. Opening it to transfer to the compost could spread some nasty germs in your kitchen. It’s better to be safe.

Unused Tools and Appliances: No one needs three can openers – especially if two don’t even work. Go through your cupboards and drawers look at what you use and what you don’t. Keep the best; let go of the rest.

Office

Writing Tools: Toss all those pens, pencils, and markers that don’t work. Also, let go of pens whose exterior colour doesn’t match the ink colour. No one will remember which pen has which ink colour or has time to test each pen before writing. Keep a 3-4 favourites. Let the rest go.

Office Supplies: How long will it take you to use 1000 staples? Months? Years? If so, you likely won’t need any more than one box of them. Designate one small container per item (elastic bands, push pins, paper clips, etc.) and let go of the extras. Keep only as much paper as you will use over a few months. Let go of the ink cartridges for the printers you no longer own. Several charitable agencies have minimal budgets for office supplies that would gladly accept donations.

Paper

Paper is hard to declutter because you often have to spend time reading and understanding the information printed on it before deciding whether to keep or toss it. However, here is a list of paper items you can downsize immediately:

• Junk mail and advertisements
• Newspapers older than one week
• Magazines older than one month
• Product catalogues older than one season
• Expired coupons or those you won’t use before the expiry date
• Greeting cards and postcards with non-sentimental messages
• Old calendars
• Outdated reference material from previous employment
• Outdated education/learning material from courses more than five years ago
• Owners’ manuals from appliances or tools you no longer own
• Receipts for items you no longer own and do not need for tax purposes (e.g., last week’s groceries) Note: when in doubt, keep it until you have had a chance to confirm it is safe to toss it out.

Electronics

Cables and Power Adapters: Our post on how to organize and donate your tech equipment will help you clear your chaos and support some worthy causes.

VHS tapes and DVDs: Get rid of them if no one has watched them during the past year.

Personal Care Products and Medications

Check the expiry dates on your personal care products with the databases at Check Cosmetics and Check Fresh. Expired products should go in the trash. If the bottles and jars are recyclable, empty the product into the garbage and recycle the container.

Unopened Products: Donate unopened products that don’t work for you. If you have multiple containers of products that you love, be realistic in what you can use before they expire. Donate what you know you won’t use.

Opened Products: Ask friends or family if they would be interested in any of the opened product that you no longer use.

Medications and Vitamins: Return expired or unused vitamins, prescriptions, and over-the-counter medication to your nearest pharmacy for proper disposal. Never put them in the trash or flush them down the toilet.

Kids’ Stuff

Clothing: See our post on decluttering kids’ clothing.

Toys and Crafts: Toss broken toys. Donate any quality toys they no longer play with. Go through their craft bins and toss the broken bits and dried-up markers and glue. Donate any items that are no longer wanted.

These are a few of the things you can downsize now but now doesn’t have to be this very minute. Spending as little as 15 minutes a day can add up over the next few weeks to simplify your home and life. If you’re still feeling overwhelmed, book an appointment with the Out of Chaos team.

Image by Thomas B. from Pixabay.